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Thursday, November 27, 2014

Entitlement

Sense
of Entitlement

Reflections
of Ferguson, Missouri versus Kewadin, Michigan

Some
of you may not appreciate my story, today especially. But, as usual, I feel the need to express
myself and it will probably be akin to smacking the hornets’ nest.

The
disruption over Ferguson, Missouri has forced long buried memories to
surface. Go along with my tale and hopefully you will
begin to see the relevance.

In
my early twenties, I shared a big farm house in Kewadin, Michigan, with four
other twenty something girls. It was big
and white, and on the corner of Cairn Highway and Cherry Avenue. Just around
the corner from The Red Bull Oasis.

Naturally,
with that many young ladies living under one roof, there was a barrage of young
men there also. None for me, of
course. I was working three jobs and
seldom even there. Just long enough to
rest my head. Nearly all of us worked for Schuss Mountain in some
capacity. Most were waitresses who
worked evenings.

I
was the breakfast supervisor at Schuss Mountain restaurant, early in the
morning. Then I would spend a few hours
in the afternoon working for Brian Cairns, the General Manager, as his administrative assistant. In the evenings I worked either as a
bartender at the Manistee Lake Lounge, in Kalkaska, or as a waitress at the
Town Club, downtown Elk Rapids.

While
working at the Town Club one Friday night a young man stepping into the bar
through the back door. The bartenders
head swiveled, he picked up a twelve pack of beer and took it to the young man. I was curious and asked about the situation.
I was told “Indians don’t belong in here, they can come to the back door and
buy beer by the twelve pack and then they leave.” Not once, that whole summer, did I see any
Native American step foot into that bar as a patron.

However,
there were a couple of women, from the local Reservation, who worked the back kitchen. Their daughters and granddaughters often came
in to lend a hand on the weekends. It
was September, on a Friday night. The thirteen year old granddaughter of Rosie
came in battered and crying. She had
been walking home from school when a truck load of white boys swooped down on
her. Beaten and raped, they left her
lying in the field they had dragged her to.
The grandmother wiped her eyes, and chided her to forget about it and
get on with her life because nothing would or could be done. They were white boys.

Well,
I got a bit angry with that attitude. I
spouted off to my boss that it was just wrong that as a business he could
charge them more money at the back door for a six pack of beer than he charged
white people by the bottle sitting in his bar. There is a song that was fairly
popular, I hated it and still do. “In
the Summertime”. It is the epitome of
entitlement. In The Summertime "If her daddy's rich than take her out for a meal, if he daddy's poor just do what you feel."

The
next weekend, I wasn't on the roster to work.
I was so happy to have a weekend off and to myself and be able to
relax.

They
guy broke into the house about 10:30 pm.
He ripped the cream colored princess phone off the wall. As we struggled, I kept thinking it was like
something out of a movie; knocking over lamps and furniture breaking. As he
punched me and kicked me, he told me no one cared what happened to me. No one would come to help me or exact any
punishment to him; not my family, not my friends, no one. He called me nasty, nasty names and then
quite obviously to make certain I knew where this originated from, threw in
“Indian lover”.

The
events taking place in Ferguson, Missouri are not actually about young Mr. Michael
Brown. They are about the sense of
entitlement exhibited by a cocksure white skinned police officer. This young man’s death was tragic, it is
especially tragic because it demonstrates how out of control the community has
evolved. Feeling you can do or say
anything to anybody, whether here in Michigan or there in Missouri, is not an
execution of your first amendment, it is a demonstration in the sense of
entitlement. Full blown demonstration by a lone police officer thinking he
could “take on” several larger, younger, more physically fit, young men. Cocksure with his lineage of entitlement.

Fourteen
other young black men had been shot by policemen in Ferguson, why this
one? Because enough is enough.

Did
I file a police report on that incident I lived through? No.
Why would I? The police were many
of the bars patrons. I donate money to
causes that fight against this. I speak
up when I can. If you need that sense of
entitlement, if you need to hate black people or Native Americans, or Irish, or
Jewish, or Spanish, or Mexican….whomever…if you need to put someone else down
to feel better about yourself, we have a dysfunctional society.

2 comments:

Your story brings this so close to home rather than in some no-name town in a state I've never been to. It's hard to believe that bigotry and social injustice still exist in today's modern society. If only the haters could see that what they do keeps the world from being the wonderful place it could be. Thanks for sharing.